Ver. 1. Open thy doors, O Lebanon] This chapter is no less comminatory than the two former had been consolatory. The tartness of the threatening maketh men best taste the sweetness of the promise. Sour and sweet make the best sauce; promises and threatenings mingled serve to keep the heart in the best temper. Hypocrites catch at the promises, as children do at deserts; and stuff themselves therewith a pillow as it were, that they may sin more securely. Here therefore they are given to understand, that God will so be merciful to the penitent, as that he will by no means clear the guilty. That is the last letter in God’s name, Exodus 34:7, and must never be forgotten. It is fitting that the wicked should be forewarned of their danger; and the godly forearmed. This chapter hangs over Jerusalem as that blazing star in the form of a bloody sword is said to have done for a whole year’s time, a little before that last destruction of it, that is here foretold five hundred years before it happened. Open thy doors, O Lebanon] i.e. Lay open thou thyself to utter ruin; for it is determined, and cannot be avoided. Lebanon was the confine of the country on that side, whereby the Romans made their first irruption, as by an inlet. Doors or gates are attributed to this forest; because against Libanus is set Antilibanus, another mountain; which is joined into it as it were with a certain wall; so that these were and are narrow passages and gates, kept sometimes by the kings of Persia by a special officer, Nehemiah 2:8, and fortified by nature; yet not so strongly but that the Romans broke in this way, and much wasted the forest, employing the trees for the besieging of Jerusalem, as Isaiah 14:8. (Hence it is here called the forest of the vintage, or the defenced forest, Zechariah 11:2 marg.) The Chaldee paraphrast by Lebanon here understandeth the temple, which was built by the cedars of Lebanon; and Ezekiel 17:3, Lebanon is put for Jerusalem; which also had in it that house of the forest of Lebanon built by Solomon, 1 Kings 7:2, wherein he had both his throne of judgment, 1 Kings 7:7, and his armoury, 1 Kings 10:17. So that by Lebanon may be very well meant the whole country of Judea; but especially the city and temple, the iron gates whereof opened themselves of their own accord, that had not been open in seven years before, and could scarcely be shut by twenty men, saith Josephus (Lib. vii. de Bell. Jud. cap. 12). This happened not long before the city was taken by Titus, whereupon Rabbi Jonathan, the son of Zechariah, cried out, En vaticinium Zechariae, Behold the prophecy of Zechariah fulfilled; for he foretold this, that this temple should be burned, and that the gates thereof should first be opened. That the fire may devour thy cedars] War is as a fire, that feedeth upon the people, Isaiah 9:19, or like as a hungry man snatcheth, &c., Isaiah 9:20, there is in war no measure or satiety of blood. The Greek word Πολεμος, for war, signifieth much blood. The Hebrew word, המחלמ devouring and eating of men, as they eat bread. The Latin Bellum, a belluis. destruction from wild beasts. It destroys the lord as well as the losel, the cedar as well as the shrub. Tamerlane’s coach horses were conquered kings. Adonibezek’s dogs, seventy kings gathering crumbs under his table. “Let fire come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon,” Judges 9:15, that is, let fire come out from Abimclech, and devour the men of Shechem, Judges 9:20.
Ver. 2. Howl, fir tree] That is, ye of lower rank, or ye meaner cities, those daughters of Jerusalem, that felt the Roman’s force; howl, take up a loud outcry, a doleful ditty, after the manner of those that are carried captive by the enemy, Psalms 137:3. For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us, qui contumulabant nos, that threw us on heaps (so Tremellius rendereth it, confer Isaiah 25:2), or those that made us howl, ululatores nostri (so Schindler), required of us mirth. Because all the mighty are spoiled] The magnificos, the men of power, as they are called, Psalms 76:5, stout-hearted and every way able for strength, courage, and riches; which often take away the life of the owners, Proverbs 1:19, and expose them to spoil; as every man desireth to lop the tree that hath thick and large boughs and branches. Howl, O ye oaks of Bashan] Og’s country, who only remained of the remnant of giants, Deuteronomy 3:11. The Jews fable that he escaped in the flood by riding astride on the ark. By the oaks of his country understand the strong and eminent. The Chaldee rendereth it, Satrapae provinciarum, ye provincial governors. For the forest of the vintage] Or, the defenced forest, viz. of Lebanon, i.e. Jerusalem, that seemed impregnable, but at length came down, ruit alto a culmine, as a cedar that is felled by a mighty one, Isaiah 10:34. Death hewed its way through a wood or forest of men in a minute of time from the mouth of a murdering piece, or some such warlike engine. When the sword is once sharpened it makes a sore slaughter; “it contemneth the rod,” Ezekiel 21:10; q.d. what does this silly rod do here? these lesser and lighter judgments? let me come, I will make work among them; down with these oaks, down with this defenced forest, &c.